


Death and Forever With Each Breathing

by Seascribe



Series: Through Death and After [2]
Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Related, F/M, Female Friendship, Hospitalization, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 14:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1351531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene dreams that she's a ghost, staring down at her own body on the operating table, at Frank in handcuffs, at Ray with her blood on his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death and Forever With Each Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [Through Death and After](http://archiveofourown.org/works/851684), in which Irene wakes up in the hospital after the events of Juliet is Bleeding. It works better if you've read that first.
> 
> Thanks to DesireeArmfeldt for brainstorming, helpful advice, and beta.
> 
> Written for the first annual C6D Ladies Day fest.

The nurse tells her the names of the painkillers dripping through the IV; Irene forgets them immediately. Everything still hurts. All they do is make her confused. She sleeps a lot, and she dreams. 

She dreams that she's a ghost, staring down at her own body on the operating table, at Frank in handcuffs, at Ray with her blood on his hands. 

She dreams of her father, frowning at her from behind his desk. This would never have happened to a good girl, he says. 

She dreams of Mama, the smell of lilacs and the fleeting comfort of soft, cool hands against her cheeks. 

Every time Irene wakes from her dreams, Ray is still there, keeping his vigil by her bedside, serving the penance he's assigned himself. Irene tries to keep her eyes closed so he won't see that she's awake. 

The nurse brings her a pad of paper and a pen, to use until they decide she can breathe on her own. Ray looks hopeful, but Irene puts the pen down and pushes it away. 

She doesn't have anything to say to him, not like this, not with feeble, stilted words scratched out letter by laborious letter, not when he can talk, when he can stand there and look down at her. Shackled to the hospital bed by the IV and the breathing tube and the painkillers, the only power Irene has is in her silence. 

She could write and tell him to go away. She wants to. The nurses would make him leave. But as angry as she is, she's afraid to be alone. She's afraid, and she hates it, and when Ray sits by her bed and asks if she needs anything, if there's anything he can do, Irene turns her face away. But she doesn't tell him to go. 

*

They move her to a different room, with pastel paintings on the wall. The nurse tells her that someone will be coming to take the breathing tube out soon. There are different drugs in the IV now, but Irene still doesn't know what they are. She's still confused, but her chest doesn't hurt quite as much. Maybe she's just getting used to the pain. 

Ray is still there, of course, slumped in the armchair by the window. This is the first time Irene has seen him sleep since she's been in the hospital. She wonders how many days she's been here. She doubts Ray knows either. 

There's a knock at the door, and Ray startles awake. Irene sees his hand reach instinctively for his gun and feels a surge of panic so strong that she almost throws up. She chokes a little around the breathing tube. The machine monitoring her vital signs beeps in agitation. 

Ray scrambles across the room, his hand hovering over the nurse-call button. His jacket is hanging open; he isn't wearing his gun, after all. "Are you okay? Irene?" 

She starts crying, huge, shuddering sobs that make her chest hurt. She hates that she's crying, hates that Ray can see her, hates that it hurts. But she can't seem to stop.

"I'm calling the nurse," Ray says, his voice shaky with panic, and Irene shakes her head.

 _No._

"Irene--" 

She grabs his sleeve with the hand that doesn't have an IV in it, appalled by how weak and clumsy her fingers are. 

"Okay," he says. He tries to take her hand in his, but Irene curls it into a fist and pulls away. She's still crying, but not so hard now. 

"Raimondo, you should go home." Irene had forgotten about the knock at the door. Mrs. Vecchio is standing in the little alcove, taking off her coat and gloves. She comes up to Ray's side and has him turned away from the bed and halfway out the door before he can protest. "Listen, go eat something, get some sleep. You're going to make yourself sick." 

She closes the door behind him with a firm click and sits down on the chair by Irene's bed, pulling a packet of tissues out of her purse and offering them to Irene. Irene swipes at her cheeks, and Mrs. Vecchio pats her shoulder. 

"Do you want me to go?" she asks, and Irene knows that it would be all right if she said yes. She can smell Mrs. Vecchio's perfume and the mix of basil and oregano and thyme that Irene remembers their house always smelled like when she came over, officially to hang out with Maria and help Frannie with her geometry homework; unofficially, to sneak off to the basement to make out with Ray. 

The paper and pen that Irene had refused are still on the table beside the bed. Mrs. Vecchio reaches over to put them where Irene can reach them, if she wants to. 

"Are they taking good care of you, the doctors here?" Mrs. Vecchio asks. Irene shrugs. She supposes the answer is yes, but then again, she isn't really in a position to judge the situation objectively. 

_I want to go home,_ she writes on the note pad. Her handwriting is shaky, but recognisably hers. 

"I know you do," Mrs. Vecchio says, her face creasing with sympathy. "But it might be a little while. The doctors will want to make sure you're healthy." 

Irene knows that--she can't even breathe on her own, it's not like she thinks that she could drive home and take care of herself. But she hates the hospital, hates the beeping machines and the nurses who open the door to let Ray in, making pleased faces behind his back that Irene has somebody who cares enough to sit by her bedside. At home, she could keep the doors locked. Unless Frank were there. She'd forgotten her brother, in the haze of painkillers and anger and misery. 

_What about Frank?_ Her handwriting shakes a lot more this time. 

Mrs. Vecchio hesitates, like maybe she's worried about upsetting Irene and making all of the monitors and machines around her bed go off again. 

"They took him to prison," she says finally. "For shooting you. When you feel a little better, probably the police will want ask you what happened." 

_Not Ray,_ Irene scribbles, and underlines it twice, so hard that she rips through the top sheet of paper. 

"No," Mrs. Vecchio says gently. She puts her hand over Irene's. "Not Ray. One of the women officers, maybe. That would be better." Irene nods and tries to blink back the tears burning behind her eyes. 

"Should I tell him not to come back?" Mrs. Vecchio asks. She squeezes Irene's hand. 

Irene feels her lower lip tremble, tears welling up in her eyes again. Family is all important--Irene knows that better than anyone--and she isn't anything to Mrs. Vecchio, just a kid from the neighbourhood twenty years ago. Irene wants to say yes, but if she does, she'll be alone. Irene clings to Mrs. Vecchio's hand, and cries, and doesn't answer. 

"Shh," Mrs. Vecchio says. " _Non pianga._ It's okay. It will be okay." She gives Irene another tissue, and Irene tries to pull herself together. 

She starts to write an apology, but Mrs. Vecchio covers her hand again before she can get past the _sorry_. 

"Don't apologise," she says. "This is hard, I know. If you need anything at all, you tell me, okay?" 

Irene nods. She doesn't have to ask for her to stay. Mrs. Vecchio sits by Irene's bed for the rest of the afternoon, telling her stories from when she was a little girl, back in Italy, stories about coming to Chicago, stories about Irene and Maria playing together after Mass when they were kids. Mama had had her own stories like that, the ones that she would tell when Irene was home from school with the flu. For the first time since she woke up in the hospital, Irene feels at peace. 

"I'll send the girls with some of my lasagne, when the doctors say you can eat again," Mrs. Vecchio says, when she stands up to leave. "This hospital food is no good, it won't help you get better. You need real homemade food." 

Irene smiles around the ventilator tube. 

_Thank you_ she writes on the notepad, and hopes that Mrs. Vecchio understands that she doesn't only mean for the lasagne. 

*

The next day, the doctor finally takes away the breathing tube. Nobody is allowed in the room when they turn the machine off and wait to see if Irene can breathe on her own. She can, and it doesn't hurt like she had been afraid that it might. Her throat does hurt, afterwards, and her voice is hoarse when she thanks the nurse for the cup of ice chips. 

"When can I go home?" she asks the doctor, who frowns at Irene's chart and scribbles a couple of notes. 

"We'll do another X-ray tomorrow and see how you're doing," she says, which isn't an answer at all. But Irene's throat hurts too much to argue.

She's almost grateful, because it's a good excuse to keep from having to talk to Ray when he comes back. He tries a couple of times to ask her how she's feeling, if she needs anything, but Irene whispers her excuses and looks past him, out the window. Ray sighs and brings her another cup of ice chips. Irene listens to the soft sound of her own shallow, careful breaths, and watches the ice melt in silence.

In his seat by the window, Ray squirms and fidgets and watches her anxiously, and just as Irene is thinking that she's going to scream, no matter how much it hurts, the door creaks open, and Maria Vecchio pokes her head into the room. 

"Can we come in?" 

Irene nods, pathetically relieved to see her. Behind Maria, Frannie is carrying a stack of magazines and a vase of yellow and pink flowers. She puts them on the table as Maria comes over to kiss Irene's cheek.

"How are you feeling?" Irene makes a face at her, and Maria smiles. "That's about what I figured." 

Frannie leans down to give her an awkward, one armed hug. She raises her eyebrows, glancing in Ray's direction, and Irene bites her lip. Family comes first. But Frannie's already straightening up, flapping her hand at Ray. 

"Clear out, bro, we're gonna have some girl time in here." She flops down in his vacated chair, scooting it up beside Irene's bed and fanning out the magazines for her to see. "I remember when Maria had the twins, all the magazines in her room were like five years old. It's awful. They expect you to get better with nothing to do but stare at the walls?" She makes a disgusted noise, and Irene tries not to laugh too much because it hurts. Maria gives her a conspiratorial grin. 

"I'll come back later," Ray says, a little uncertainly, and Frannie ushers him out the door before Irene has to say anything. She gives Frannie a grateful smile. 

"Ma said you could use some company besides Ray," Maria says. 

Irene nods. She can tell that they're both dying to ask about what happened to her, but she really doesn't want to talk about it, and Frannie and Maria bite their tongues on their questions. Instead, the three of them flip idly through Frannie's magazines and talk about Maria's kids and all the things that have changed since Irene left Chicago, like they're out for coffee after Mass, instead of in a hospital room. It doesn't seem like they've been there very long before Irene starts to feel exhausted, maybe from the effort of breathing on her own again, and talking after so many days of silence. 

"We should let you get some rest," Maria says. She leans over to hug Irene good-bye, carefully. "I'm sure you have lots of family coming to visit."

Irene shakes her head. "Just--just Ray. And your mom, yesterday." 

Maria tries and fails to hide the expression of horrified pity that flickers across her face, and Frannie says quickly, "I'll come again tomorrow. Ma's been talking for days now about feeding you up; I'll bring you some of her lasagne." 

"I can come by after work too," Maria says. 

Irene knows she should protest that she'll be fine, they really don't need to take the trouble, but she can't bring herself to do it. 

"That would be great," Irene says, hoping she sounds calmer than she feels.

"Maybe we can get them to give you a tv," Frannie chimes in. "It'd probably only get boring daytime programming, but at least it would be better than listening to my brother all day, right?"

Irene tries to laugh, like she's supposed to, but it comes out wrong, choked and tearful in a way that can't be blamed on her sore throat. Maria gives Frannie a look, one of those unsubtle, significant looks that means they're having an entire silent conversation over her hospital bed.

"Do you want me to tell Ray to leave you alone for a few days?" Maria asks carefully. "I can understand how you might need some time away from him right now." 

"No," Irene says, before she can give into temptation. "No. I need to talk to him." 

"All right," Maria says. She scribbles something on the notepad on the table. "Call if you need anything, okay? See you tomorrow." 

"Get well soon," Frannie adds, and then they're gone. Irene closes her eyes and breathes and tries to think about exactly what she's going to say when Ray comes back.

*

Irene hears the nurses before Ray opens the door, commenting happily on how nice it is that he comes to see her every day. He hesitates in the doorway. 

"Did you have a good visit with Frannie and Maria?" He takes a couple steps into the room, towards his usual chair by her bedside. Irene swallows hard, trying to make her throat work. Ray watches her anxiously, his shoulders hunched and defensive. 

"Do you want me to get you anything?" he tries. 

Irene swallows hard again, and this time the words come out. 

"I want you to leave." Her voice is hoarse, but steady. 

Ray flinches back like she'd slapped him. "I'm sorry," he whispers. 

"I don't want to hear any more apologies," Irene snaps. That makes her throat hurt, but she ignores it. "Just go away." 

"Irene--" 

"Get out." 

He goes, and Irene is alone. She looks at the flowers and magazines on her bedside table, and breathes in and out, on her own, and tries not to be afraid.


End file.
